


Good night

by Sergeant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Conversation, Eli is stubborn, Gen, Roommates, Thrawn does not approve, Thrawn's thoughts and observations and deductions, imperial uniforms, written instead of sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 04:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11223462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sergeant/pseuds/Sergeant
Summary: At the Academy Thrawn and Eli Vanto share a room and Thrawn is learning to understand his new companion’s behaviour.And what would be a better time to do that than late at night.Basically, Eli decides to sleep in his uniform and Thrawn does not approve.





	Good night

Thrawn lied in his bed and looked shortly at Eli, who was already lying in his bed. The man was on his stomach and propped up on his elbows, focused deeply on whatever he was reading.

Thrawn didn’t want to disturb him from his studies, so he just took his datapad and decided to read something as well. Besides, Eli was still in his uniform and nowhere ready to go to sleep, so Thrawn might as well use that time in a better way than to just stare at the ceiling.

Despite being used to a military life style, he could never easily fall asleep while there was someone awake with him in the room, unless he was completely exhausted or it was outside and during some operation, where, naturally, always had to be people who were awake.

It was not because he wouldn’t trust cadet Vanto, he knew that the man was honest and loyal; Thrawn just couldn’t relax properly in the completely new environment. He was certain it was just a matter of time to get used to his human companion, but currently he found himself being woken up every time the man turned in his sleep and flinching when he heard footsteps in the hallway.

That made him think about his brother who could make basically any kind of mess in the morning and not wake Thrawn up. Oh, how he missed him!

Thrawn glanced at Eli again, realizing he would be able to make a report with graphs about when Eli actually fell asleep, when his sleep was most restless during the night and how long it took him to react to a beeping comlink, which served as an alarm clock.

Thrawn went back to reading, but soon decided he was too tired to absorb the words properly so he went on holonet, found a site describing how human culture differs according to their climate and location in the Galaxy and browsed through some holopictures of buildings in various parts of the Galaxy.

He immediately noticed when Eli stopped paying attention to his datapad and started looking at different things in the room. Thrawn didn’t take his eyes off the screen, but with his peripheral vision paid full attention to Eli’s movements and only pretended to read by absent-mindedly scrolling the page on the datapad.

 Well, first Eli looked at Thrawn – he wanted to see if the alien was working or ready to go to sleep. Then there was a quick glance at his comlink to check the time. After that he looked at the small window in their room. Thrawn hoped Eli didn’t want to close it for the night, but his look suggested otherwise.

Then Eli turned his head slightly to look at the lights, which was the final sign that his roommate wanted to go to sleep.

Thrawn frowned because this behaviour was a bit unusual. Cadet Vanto only did this right before he actually wanted to turn the lights off, but today he still had to change his clothes and prepare things for the next day as he always did in the evening.

But considering the late hour, Thrawn put his datapad on his desk in attempt to coax the man into speeding up the process.

When Eli looked at him, he lied on his side and pulled a blanket over himself.

Eli also put his datapad away and said in a clear voice: “Lights off.”

The Chiss turned disbelievingly to Eli, even though the man couldn’t see him in the dark. This was very unusual indeed.

“Cadet Vanto?” He asked silently.

“Hmphm?” Eli’s voice was muffled by his pillow.

Thrawn briefly wondered how the human could keep a steady income of oxygen with his face buried in the pillow and most importantly – why would he even do that? It couldn’t have been comfortable.

“Kanit weim telle mornngh?”

The Chiss frowned. “I am afraid I could not understand you properly. Was that Basic or Sy Bisti?”

Thrawn heard some movement and then Eli repeated his words, this time with his voice clear.

“I was saying if it can wait till the morning, but go ahead.” He prompted the alien.

“You are wearing your uniform.” Thrawn stated.

“Yep.”

“But you are going to sleep.”

“I certainly hope so.” Eli said but Thrawn didn’t take a hint.

“You shouldn’t sleep in your uniform.”

“It’s late, Thrawn. Besides, I would just have to put it on in three hours anyway.”

“But this way it’s going to crumple.”

“It’s just three hours, I will probably stay in a same position for the whole time.”

Thrawn was certain that wouldn’t happen, because one phase of Eli’s sleep was very restless and in those three hours he would definitely manage to have at least one.

“I don’t think so.” Thrawn finally said diplomatically.

“It will also save time in the morning, because I won’t have to put it on.” Eli argued more.

Thrawn disagreed on this as well. If Eli got up when the comlink beeped, he would gain approximately three minutes of time, which were being wasted every morning as he always just lied in bed with no purpose. These three minutes would be more than enough to put the uniform on.

On the other hand, it might be normal for humans to need some time in the morning to switch fully from the sleep.

“Perhaps.” Thrawn said neutrally.

“Why do you care?”

“The state of your uniform says a lot about you.”

“So tomorrow everyone will know I’m an exhausted cadet who spends the nights studying instead of sleeping?”

Thrawn pursed his lips to a thin line as a teacher disappointed in his student.

“Clean and smooth uniform shows power and control. How could a soldier who can’t take care of their own clothes be responsible for their subordinates’ lives?”

“That’s deep,” Eli admitted. “But I’m still not changing.”

“Would you respect an officer whose uniform was dirty and with stains?”

There was silence for a while, but Thrawn knew Eli didn’t fall asleep, because his breathing pattern didn’t even out.

“Good night, Thrawn.” He said eventually.

“Good night.” The Chiss replied.

Right after that he heard the man turning around again and it didn’t sound like he put any effort into keeping his uniform smooth.

“Would you respect an officer with a dirty uniform?” Thrawn asked again when he was sure Eli forgot the question.

His immediate answer was made only out of a weird distress noise.

Thrawn froze. It sounded like a suppressed sob, but Thrawn couldn’t understand why Eli made it. He wasn’t in pain – neither physical nor emotional. He drank enough water and ate enough during the day, so it didn’t seem he would be suffering from lack of thereof.

But soon Thrawn relaxed, because Eli spoke again.

“Do you know what a ‘good night’ means?”

Thrawn didn’t see any connection to his topic, but replied anyway. “It is a common human greeting used at night time.”

“That is not completely accurate. It is used when you want to say good bye to someone at night, but also as last words to someone right before you go to sleep.”

“Interesting.”

“Oh, it is?” Eli’s voice was filled with sarcasm.

It occurred to Thrawn that Eli was likely frustrated with the lack of sleep and stress from the lectures and it seemed wise to let him sleep.

Even though now it seemed he would save more time if he just took off the uniform so Thrawn wouldn’t start questioning his decision.

Perhaps in the future he should pay more attention to the man’s tone and learn how to recognize times when a discussion would only lead to displeasure.

So far it seemed that some humans didn’t openly admit that they didn’t like something and only dropped indefinite hints. As Thrawn thought back about the conversation, he recalled few Eli’s statements which probably expressed his wish for Thrawn to stop speaking.

Thrawn made a mental note to also pay more attention to short and curt answers, repetitive usage of sarcasm and longer pauses between the answers and assign a list of possible emotions to them.

Thrawn could recognize emotions, but sometimes he had a hard time realizing what lead to them and logically explaining them.

…

To Eli’s relief Thrawn fell finally silent. He hoped he didn’t offend the Chiss but on second thought it didn’t really matter to them at the moment if it meant Thrawn would let him sleep.

Eli closed his eyes which he didn’t even remember opening in the dark and changed his position to a more comfortable one with a slight smile.

_Finally._

But after few moments he sighed loudly.

“Stop thinking about it and just go to sleep.” He forced his voice to be calm and polite.

Thrawn just murmured guiltily that Eli could read him better and turned on his other side, forcing his mind to relax so could fall asleep.


End file.
